Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons EP

(Glassnote; US: 7 Dec 2010; UK: 2 Jul 2010)

Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons: EP

The union of these groups runs on energy, and, evidently, a closeness, a familiarity with one another that gives everybody the confidence to feed off one another, match one another, pick up and underline each other’s riffs. The energy they show here is the sort of energy that makes people prize live shows above recordings. They seem fearless. Laura Marling, British folk musician, and the Dharohar Group, British-based but Rajasthan-themed, rip into a fusion of her “Devil’s Spoke” and their “Sneh Ko Marg” with so much strength it’s brutal. The audience for this album is probably going to be more familiar with Mumford & Sons than with Marling and the Darohars, but it’s Marling who will pique your interest when you hear the disc. A British musician sings a line, an Indian picks up the line and shoots it off into a Sufi-esque corkscrew. Brilliant.